Frenzy
by Osamu
Summary: Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
1. Scene 1

My name is Ciel. And I live in a cage.

I wonder when it all started. Curiously, I try to clamber over the mounds of memories that were piled up from the moment I first breathed. But really, I can't pinpoint the time or place that it all began, and maybe that's because it all began before I was born. Long before my eyes had taken in the cesspool of darkness around me, my fate had been sealed in blood and wishes - or rather, that's what I thought sometimes.

The cage I mentioned is, rather, a house. A warm house, with a sturdy roof and a television. My father sits in front of the glowing box, glasses hiding his eyes with the reflected gleam. And my mother, when she isn't working at some grimy restraunt, is always on the computer with her fingernails nervously clacking against keys in erratic tandem. I sit in the corner, alone. I allow the shadows to swallow me, and in my silence I watch them both, quietly, wondering and waiting when they would see me this time.

When I was younger and had lived in a house filled to the brim with children like me, I had heard fearsome things about foster parents. When they show up, they appear scrubbed clean and all smiles, much like the rumors of Santa Claus being real. But unlike Santa, who never came to visit us, they often did from time to time, and they'd always pluck out one of the trembling children. I remember the faces of all of them, some foolishly smiling and flushed at the idea of having parents, and others just staring blankly, digesting the situation with their empty eyes. But all of them knew the danger of foster care: either they truly loved you, or they truly used you. There was no in between.

I experianced the latter.

"You'll be living with us, now," They had told me, lips stitched up into a banana-spread grin. I noticed how my newfound-father had something black wedged between his plaque-crusted teeth. I should have known then that there was no hope for me. There was no hope for any of us. All we can provide for these money-sucking adults is slavery and checks made out to their name.

"Better the devil you know than the angel you don't," I remember someone saying to me once. And it was true. Because I prayed, steadfastedly, for my life to end. I begged God to embellish a deep sleep to end my suffering, yet he turned his cheek and claimed that he didn't know me. And so I turned from God first. I shut out hope from my heart, blackening my spirit with nothing but apathy. Despair would consume me, and hope would destroy me - so I will feel nothing. I feel nothing but fear.

When his wife goes to work, wherever that is, he turns off Tivo and heads to his room. At that point, I know whats coming next. When he emerges, in his claws I can see a small disc, and I know captured in the plastic there is disturbing images of men touching each other. He hides them when his wife is at home. And then, once the TV fizzles black after a half hour of filthy images, he turns to me and beckons me with his hand.

And that night, this ritual repeated itself once again.

"Pl-please, father," I wept, silenced by sausage fingers shoving past my tongue. He was rough and it hurt and after he left me in a trembling mess all over the couch I could only feel a burning hatred clamp down on my throat. Outside, he was smoking a cigarette that had already stained his whiskers with the musky dry scent, and absent mindedly the pads of my fingers traced the raw flesh he had scrubbed on my cheeks. When he did those dirty, strange things to me, he often rubbed the coarse hairs on his chin against my face until it felt like an open wound.

Then his wife came home.

She never asked him any questions, never argued with him - just walked over to me and slapped me across the face, hard. I thought I was going to die, the heartache billowed up in my chest like a balloon. Can people die because they are hurt emotionally? Most likely not, I considered, since I had been going at it everyday. She slapped me again, and rosy blood blossomed over my lips

I ran outside.

I could hear her screaming at the doorway, shrill cries piercing my ears. I had never left the house before; I hadn't had the chance. Had I fought hard? I couldn't remember pushing her away, I could remember throwing the nearest object - a beer bottle - at the wall so it shattered into glimmering chunks. I just remembered running outside, feet and eyes and skin tasting the fresh world with ecstasy. I could feel the first snow of November tickle under my feet with all its downy softness. It was cold icy wetness, but I ran til I was as far from that house as possible. I expected nothing. I expected nobody. I shivered, I trembled, and sobs kept bubbling from my throat like a dry vomit. My body ached, so deeply and wretchedly, and I cursed god with my breath. I expected to die. I expected to freeze to death. I expected to even end up back in that cage.

I didn't expect a black figure to be waiting for me at the end of the street.


	2. Scene 2

I stood in the street, stark naked skin stippled and revealed to the world. Winter air nipped my skin, painting goosebumps from the nape of my hair down to my ankles. I stood shattered from the cold, fear, and complete oblivion, body crumbling in the sub-zero weather. From my lips and throat I procured a smokey breath that heaved my chest, unused to running the long distance I had imprinted onto the snow.

In front of me stood a man. Hair of ravens split evenly in the middle, caressing a slender yet flawless face that was paled against the darkness. A street light arched over us, its incandescent blueness brightening his facial features somewhat. From a glance I noticed his eyebrows arched up, cheekbones high - my mind flared up, whispering to me with a deep urgency that I couldn't quite recognize nor understand. But my curiosity and intrigue, for whatever reason it was beckoned, was stopping me from simply turning on a heel and running but instead halting where I stood, several footsteps from where he stood like a gallant dark horse.

I dared ask, "Who are you?" My words were small drops of water in a bucket, barely touching his ears, and my eyes felt broken as they stared at the man through blurs of water. From first glance I could see he was odd. Dark clothes, clean and formal, and pupils like crusted blood that held a knowledge I neither feared nor embraced. Such an eccentricity hung around me and I clung desperately to myself in futile attempts to drive off the cold.

"So this appearance didn't trigger your memories, I see," He mumbled louder than necessary, a devilish snerk upturning his lips. It was almost like he was challenging me, and I stood on the defensive. "I'm Sebastian Michaelis - a butler."

_Butler?_ I wasn't immediately familiar with the term; I had been trapped inside that wretched house and only learned what I saw on the television. Briefly I scanned my memories, recalling that a butler was someone who served a wealthy master. I didn't blink my eyes, not for a moment did I second guess anything he was saying. If he was a butler, he was a butler - how could I argue that?

The man in black - or rather, Sebastian - leaned down to me, his eyes suddenly bleeding into a wild red of glowing shades, and a fear clenched inside my gut and clamped on my throat. I didn't even stop to think that just moments before he had been standing several yards away from me.

Darkness I had known my whole life - but before me was suddenly a beast who reflected all the emotions that had churned and boiled within me since the moment I was born. For a moment, my mouth hung open, trying to grasp words as a gloved hand traced it's way down my cheek. Where his fingers touched, it was as if a knife cut into me, and I trembled beneath his gaze. But behind that cold feeling in my gut and panic rising in my chest, I oddly felt as if I could understand this person - and he could understand me. Whatever that meant.

I spoke, "Wh-what _are_ you?" Azure pushed against glimmering red, and even as I said the words I knew what it meant. He clearly wasn't like mother or father, and not even like me, in an odd way. Was he an angel? It seemed to be a reasonable guess, as an odd sense of familiarity came from his demeanor. Something told me that he had been watching me, guarding me for a very long time, and I dared not question the overwhelming questions that drummed into me. The way his lips curved up at the corners, indenting on his flawless face, I could even then see the strangeness in this man -

The snow fell around us, dusting on my shoulders. A cold breeze swept through and cut through me, and I shut my eyes in a weak attempt to shut out the cold; in those passing moments, I was aware of the chilled whisper of the man kissing my ear -

"Perhaps, Ciel, a demon?"

I opened my eyes, and he was gone.

He said my name.

000000

My father found me. It had been unexpected, seeing his looming figure over me. I could smell the cigarette smoke long before I had opened my eyes though.

My fingers had turned a bizarre bluish color, and my hair was crusted with snow. Nerves had gone haywire from the cold and my body trembled, weak and spastic with small spasms jerking through my muscles. My father – he smiled down at me, a knowing smile that promised nothing but pain. And for the first time, I felt resentment. Pure, seething resentment that made my throat clench tightly and my eyebrows knit in fury. I was so _sick _of being treated like an animal.

He jutted a thick thumb over at his battered car, a gesture for me to get inside, and then stepped away. It wasn't long until I heard the slam of the driver door and obnoxious honking. Shaking, I tried to stand, but I couldn't feel anything in my legs and I instead collapsed to the ground in a miserable shivering heap. When he continued to pound into the wheel though, coaxing forth the erratic abrasive sound, I crawled with my corpse-like body. Snow and gravel grated under my stomach, wind whipping at my hair, but I managed to drag myself into the back seat after more effort than my body could handle.

Once I felt the stale warmth of the vehicle, my eyes slammed shut.

"Your little escape attempt earned you a lesson," A voice breathed huskily in my ear, filling it with sickly wet warmth. My eyelids fluttered open and I recognized my parents bed below me, and my father above me. I looked up at him placidly. How long had I been asleep for?

When he began to touch me though, I screamed. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" I never knew my voice could get so loud. My throat ached as I continued to bellow, fists clenching a handful of bedsheets. My vision blurred when he punched me square across the face.

For a moment I just lay there, breathing hard. My mother...she must be outside somewhere. I called her name for the first time, "Mother, please!" I screamed, squirming away from his grip, but she didn't come. Where was she?

"Your mother isn't here. She left during your runaway, you _little shit_. And she isn't coming back." He kissed me, hard, biting on my lower lip. I could feel his tongue roughly pushing in and his teeth clashing against mine awkwardly, and I wept and wept and begged. "You're all mine now."

_God, please, stop this-_

_**God isn't going to save you.**_

I stilled. That voice was familiar, yet the name rested on the tip of my tongue. _God isn't going to save me_.

Father was inside me, raping me, touching me in places nobody should be touched, and I looked up at the ceiling. He was panting, breathing hard over my skin, whiskers rubbing it raw. And for a moment, I just lay there.

_It's over. It's truly over._

_**No. It's just beginning.**_

I knew that voice. I screamed.

"Sebastian! _Save me_!"

My father was dead. His body had been thrown against the wall, at the same time being stabbed with at least a dozen knives, before collapsing to the ground in a bleeding heap. One weapon was stuck into his forehead completely at the hilt, and the blood dripped down the bridge of his nose. I was untouched. The image, however, didn't startle me. It seemed completely natural, as if I'd played out this scenario hundreds of times in my mind. Looping it over and over again. And it was then that I recognized that my dearest wish, my sincere hope, had been realized.

But I knew who would be standing at the foot of the bed.

"_Sebastian_," I was breathless as I spoke, looking to the man in complete bewilderment. That smile was gracious, turning up with a wicked taste as he placed a hand over his chest. He bowed.

"A butler who couldn't do this isn't worth his salt," He said, brooding eyes looking up at me beneath dark hair. The words struck me to be far too familiar. I swallowed. This man, this _butler _had killed my father. Sure he was a foster parent, yet – wasn't this murder? But no. He deserved it. That man deserved to die! All of them, everyone who wronged me –

I stood on the bed, legs quavering beneath me, watching the mysterious mans' gaze. I was naked, yet he didn't waver. In his eyes I saw a different kind of hunger, very much unlike the dead man's lustful gaze. I was glad that my fathers eyes eyes were closed forever. "You came for me, Sebastian?" I asked, staggering a little. He closed his eyes, nodding before straightening his back.

"I promised you before, I would always come for you. As long as you have my mark."

I raised an eyebrow. "Mark?" I was weak, but I had to know. "The only marks I have are these," I stated, hand running over cuts and bruises and hickeys on my torso. I shot an angry look at the dead man for a moment before addressing the butler again. "What do you want?"

"A contract."

I collapsed to my knees, my battered body unable to stand anymore. Our eyes connected.

"A...contract?"

His gloved hand flitted up to my cheekbones, stroking my shaggy dark hair to the side. For a moment, I weakened, giving in to that far too tender touch by nuzzling it slightly. I stiffened, then. He grinned at me, smile almost mocking me as he covered my right eye with his hand.

"This eye will do, don't you think?"


End file.
